Carol for Council

1005 7^th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 737-7337
www.carol2000.com

1) Do you have a web page, and if so what is the address?

Yes, the address for my campaign web page is www.carol2000.com, and my member page on the Council of the District of Columbia website can be accessed at www.dccouncil.washington.dc.us/schwartz/schwartz.html.

2) What is the most important issue facing the city?

The most important issue facing the city is its continued financial recovery. If we do not act now to ensure that our fiscal health keeps growing stronger and then remains in good shape, the chances of significant improvements in other very important areas – schools and health care, to name just two – are greatly diminished, if not lost altogether.

People have differing views about how best to achieve long-term financial security for our city. I believe, and my colleagues on the Council believe, that consistent fiscal responsibility, along with strong legislative oversight, should be practiced in each and every area of city spending. For example, as the Council worked on the city’s consensus budget package for the 2001 fiscal year, we insisted on proper fiscal restraint in the spending of funds from the city’s $150 million budget reserve and from the $1.2 billion tobacco settlement the city will receive over the next 25 years. With an eye toward the city’s future financial security, and thanks to our efforts, a significant portion of money received from this year’s tobacco settlement funds will be treated as an endowment – an investment that will continue to provide us with money to pay for much-needed education and health programs for today and for the years to come.

In my response to a question number 8, I point out that one of the most critical factors involving our city’s financial future is our fiduciary relationship with the federal government. The federal government takes up much of our land and office space – and it is not taxed. We must work out a fair arrangement with the federal government that compensates the city not only for the absence of these taxes, but also for the goods and services the city provides to the federal government and its many workers here who are not residents of the District.

3) If elected, what is the first piece of legislation you will introduce and why?

I have not anticipated what my first piece of legislation would be in January of 2001, if I am re-elected. During the current council term, I have accomplished a number of legislative goals that I had set when I returned to the Council in 1997, after an eight-year hiatus. In 1998, the Whistleblower Reinforcement Act, which resulted from legislation I introduced, went into effect. This law greatly strengthened protections for city government workers who expose waste, fraud and abuse in the workplace, and it is considered one of the most effective of its kind in the nation. I also got a bill through the Council to toughen our drunk driving laws, and a bill that provided free parking at most metered spaces on evenings and Saturdays.

The critical shortage of teachers, which affects school systems across the nation, was also a legislative focus for me. During this Council period, I introduced a bill that authorized paying signing bonuses to new teachers, and another bill that makes teachers eligible for low-interest loans to buy homes in the District.

I also got the ball rolling on tax reductions to make D.C. more competitive with the suburbs for residents, businesses and jobs.

4) How do you assess the job Mayor Williams has done to-date?

The city has made progress since Mayor Williams and this new Council took office last year, but we all still have a long way to go. We are all working hard – sometimes disagreeing, but always with our minds focused on what we feel are the best interests of all those we serve – to make Washington a better place and its government more effective, efficient and customer-friendly.

5) What, if anything, needs to be done to improve the delivery of city services?

There is always room for improvement and, in some cases, there is room for a great deal of improvement. We must enhance the training we provide our workers so that they can feel positive about their jobs and their prospects for advancement and become more customer -friendly, and we must ensure that our employees have the up-to-date equipment they need to do their jobs well. Our citizens pay dearly for these services, and they deserve quality in return. On the Council, we must continue to thoroughly monitor the agencies that are responsible for providing services to our citizens and make sure that our residents get the most for their tax dollars.

For the past year and a half, I have chaired the Council’s Committee on Public Works and the Environment. In this role, I have aggressively pursued issues ranging from the safety of our city’s infrastructure to the safety of our taxi drivers; from cleaner streets and alleys to better equipment and training for our workers; from the maintenance and replanting of our city’s trees to the initiation of fair and accurate fees for street-digging by utility and telecommunications companies.

During the past two budget cycles, I was able to boost support for key operations at two city departments for which my committee has oversight responsibilities. As a result, the Department of Public Works has the funding it needs to focus on improving its efforts in the areas of neighborhood clean-up operations, tree care and replanting, rodent control, snow removal, residential parking enforcement, recycling, and trash collection. At the Department of Motor Vehicles, the additional funding is earmarked specifically to reduce the waiting time our citizens endure at its facilities.

We all know adequate funding is essential, but we must also become more efficient by having fewer administrators and more front-line workers who are well-trained, equipped and evaluated.

6) What is your assessment of the performance of the DC Police?

The Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) has undergone a significant transformation since the arrival of Chief Charles Ramsey. Improved training, new technology, modern equipment, including new cars and uniforms, have helped to raise the Department’s morale and its performance.

Plans are underway to modernize District Headquarters, bicycle patrols have added a speedier edge to the traditional foot beat, and MPD officers are better with their weapons thanks to improved weapons training. MPD officers have received valuable training in domestic violence negotiations, and the revival of the police cadet program, at the urging of the Council, will serve as a direct source of peoplepower for the police academy.

We now have a working Citizen Complaint Review Board that has been funded by the District Council to help our police maintain a quality force with input from our citizenry. It is hoped that our police will be better educated and better trained to meet the demands of the new millennium with improved in-service training courses and a mandatory Associate's Degree requirement, passed by the Council, for all new hires within five years of joining MPD.

However, there are areas where MPD can and must continue to improve. I believe that the best way to reduce crime is through a greater police presence, and I have backed efforts on the Council to put more officers on the street patrols in our business districts and neighborhoods. Police communications is another area that needs work. There is no excuse for getting a busy signal when dialing 911. Also, police officers and other emergency workers have to understand and be able to deal with our diverse population. Discrimination for whatever reason – race, gender, sexual orientation – cannot be cannot be tolerated, and must be guarded against vigorously.

Police officer retention and recruitment also remain significant problems. A professional recruitment effort, competitive with neighboring jurisdictions, is still needed. Even more important is the need to devise a competitive retention program to avoid losing valuable officers after we have put the time, money and effort into their training.

7) What should be done to reduce crime in DC?

To my great relief – to the great relief of us all, no doubt – our crime rate is down some from the miserable highs of the early and mid-1990s. But there is still too much senseless violence. Young people are struck down over meaningless arguments and our seniors, minding their own business, are caught in the crossfire.

On the Council, I have backed efforts to increase funding for our police department and get more officers on the streets, where I think they belong. In too many neighborhoods, people are still afraid to go to the corner store, afraid to take a walk with their kids, afraid to sit on their porches or front stoops. I believe that a greater police presence in our neighborhoods will help further reduce the crime rate, and I know that more officers on the beat would go a long way toward giving residents in troubled neighborhoods greater peace of mind, as well as true safety.

8) Tax revenue is expected to shrink over the coming years. How would you make up for the anticipated shortfall?

The District of Columbia needs to look at several sources in order to successfully meet its future revenue needs. On the local level, the District has and continues to help itself. As a result of a legislative initiative I introduced, we now have free parking downtown on Saturdays and in the evenings to spur additional shopping – and revenues – in the District. I have supported and sponsored incentive tax reductions to lure businesses to the District of Columbia, and I co-sponsored the "New Economy Transformation Act of 2000" to assist in transforming the District's economy by encouraging high technology companies to locate here. I have encouraged and supported tax incentives for first-time homebuyers, for new teachers and for the working poor.

I have demanded equitable cost-sharing with businesses which seek to make D.C. a communications-commerce link, by insisting that they pay their fair share of road repair and maintenance costs in exchange for the access to our public rights-of -way that they require. I have secured additional funding specifically to improve basic government services that will attract new residents to our city – new residents who will stay and contribute to a broader tax base. I have also worked for greater tax parity with our neighbors in Maryland and Virginia, where many of our residents fled as a result of our too-high tax rates. Although tax relief and tax incentives do not provide additional revenue immediately, I strongly believe that if we responsibly and selectively reduce tax rates, the resulting increase in tax volume will more than make up for rate reductions.

Perhaps the most essential element needed to stabilize the District's revenue picture in the near future is addressing a new fiscal relationship with the federal government, which must acknowledge and fully undertake its responsibilities to the District of Columbia.

In the 1990s, we had a real economic awakening on both the local and national levels. Locally, we awoke to the fact that our fiscal structure was dysfunctional and a principal reason for the District of Columbia's financial woes. We have state and county – as well as city – responsibilities. Unlike other cities, we cannot turn to a state for help. Moreover, the federal presence narrows the District's property and sales tax base and restricts the District's ability to raise revenue and inadequately compensates our city for the cost of those restrictions. If I am re-elected to the Council, I will continue to push for a fair arrangement with the federal government that works to the benefit of our residents and to the benefit of our city’s fiscal health.

9) What should the balance be between developing downtown and developing the neighborhoods?

I believe that a financially healthy city with a busy and vibrant downtown brings brighter prospects and greater opportunities to us all, because an increased business tax base pays dividends in the form of better schools, infrastructure improvements, and other vital services that are attributes of a fiscally sound city.

Revitalizing our neighborhoods is of equal importance. I co-sponsored the Tax Increment Financing Legislation (TIF), which was passed by the Council three years ago. TIF, and other such incentives that I have supported, are designed to promote economic development in the form of neighborhood shopping areas throughout the city.

In our neighborhoods across the city, the surest path to revitalization is to get residents back into our city, where the population has declined by more than 200,000 over the last 30 years. New homeowners breathe new life into communities, and there are no better stewards of our neighborhoods than people who have a vested interest in the vitality of their surroundings. Also, once people start moving in and rediscovering these once-blighted neighborhoods, small businesses – and even large businesses – are likely to follow.

On the Council, I have introduced or co-sponsored numerous measures aimed at bringing residents into our city and making homeownership affordable. If I am re-elected, I will continue to seek out creative and responsible ways to make the District of Columbia a more attractive place for people to live and do business.

10) Council members must work within a system that contains an interplay of forces (the Mayor, the Council, the Control Board, Congress) – all with a "say" in policy-making in The District. As a council member, how will you work within this system to achieve what is best for the District?

This unique "interplay of forces" presents those in local government with a set of often-frustrating challenges, but as we recover from the financial lows of the early and mid-1990s, our government gets stronger as well. If we keep our financial house in order – and we will – the Control Board will go out of business next year. And while the Congress should not interfere in local governance at all, it is less likely to interfere so long as we do the job of governing ourselves well.

The Council is an institution which is near and dear to my heart – first as an observer when it was formed in 1975, and then as a member for close to eight years now, initially for four years in the 1980s and again since 1997. It is absolutely clear to me – and it has been clear to me for at least 25 years – that an effective government that works for the people it represents cannot be built without strong oversight and consistent monitoring of the agencies and officials charged with delivering services. In my opinion, the current Council has gone about the business of government oversight and monitoring with great energy and unprecedented resolve, and I firmly believe that our citizens are better served as a result.

11) What qualifies you to be a member of the DC Council?

I have a long history of service to this city – both in public life and private life – as a community activist and volunteer, as a parent of three children who attended all their pre-college years in our public schools, as a member of the Board of Education from 1974 to 1982, and as a member of the Council from 1985 to 1989 and again since 1997. I have had the courage to fight against problems that were present and against the problems that I could see ahead, including the terrible financial straits that our city experienced just a few short years ago. During my Council term in the 1980s, I spoke out against – and voted against – the bloated budgets and the rampant spending. I did not contribute to creating the mess that our city got into in the early and mid-1990’s, and I have devoted much of my time on the Council this term to trying to fix what was broken and to ensure that our finance never get out of control again.

I have also been accessible and responsive to the people I represent throughout all of my elected years. I bring a history of standing up for important issues but not personalizing the debate, and a willingness to compromise if that’s what it takes to get the job done. I bring a record of strong ethical principles and no patience for anything else. I bring a seriousness to the task at hand while maintaining a sense of humor. And I bring what I believe to be a well-deserved reputation for being open-minded and straightforward. These are characteristics that our citizens can continue to expect from me if I am elected to another term on the Council.